The Link on wheels

myplace Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The challenge about myplace then, is how do you keep the momentum going while you're waiting for your building to come to life? And how do you spread the word in order to engage large numbers of people about something that hasn't yet happened?

The answer, in Newcastle at least, is to put myplace on wheels.

In Newcastle, the myplace team is brimming with ideas, passion and creativity. While they are waiting for The Link to open, rather than telling stories about how good it's going to be, there are plans afoot to take myplace to the parts it might not normally reach.

"For a lot of young people, the bus will be the first point of contact with myplace," explains Don Irving, Head of the Youth Service at Newcastle City Council. "With a bus, we'll be able to take myplace out into the back streets."

Next year, the myplace team will buy a bus and kit it out to embody the brand values of The Link. If you go by the plans for the building itself, the bus will be welcoming, exciting, colourful, inventive, intriguing, different and modern.

Two years before The Link opens, the Newcastle myplace team will be able to raise awareness about what they are doing by offering a roving myplace. And when the Link - a transformation of an unused building next to Newcastle's City Hall and City Pool - is up and running, Don believes that the bus will continue to have a role.

"Some young people won't use building-based facilities," explains Don. "Some of them will feel intimidated; they'll struggle with the rules. The bus will be more informal: outreach workers will be able to take myplace to the 'hard to reach' and they'll provide a menu of facilities."

But whether myplace is expressed through a bus or a building, the potential of this project goes way beyond a physical space, as Don Irving points out.

"It's not just the building design. It's about governance," Don says. "For years young people have been patronised. But this has been a genuine move by the government to think differently. myplace is giving permission for a whole new way of doing things. If you involve young people from the outset, they come up with things that are wonderful."

Wonderful things are under discussion at a client team meeting one recent Wednesday evening. Kiah Manning, Emily Hogg, Lizi Gray and Lauren Smeaton are talking about how they could light their building at night. Newcastle is a city which knows how to light its landmarks: the Millennium bridge takes on a the mantle of a rainbow after dusk. In Gateshead, the Sage and the Baltic act as beacons on the other side of the Millennium Bridge.

"Bright, colourful lights at night," are suggested. "Like stars," says Emily.

The Link is one of the projects that received support through the Sorrell Foundation's joined-up design for myplace initiative and during the early stages the team worked closely with architects Fletcher Priest and went to visit several buildings in London to gain inspiration, including the Roundhouse and Watermark Place.

"This building has got to be something that lasts," points out Kiah. "Fashions change but this has to be relevant in twenty years time."

They move on to talk about how to engage other young people, and the challenges they are facing.

"A lot of people complain that it's a city centre project but they don't know all the details," says Lizi. "We'll have the bus to go to places which don't have a good bus route so we can actually collect young people from there and do wider consultations."

Jill Bauld, who works with Newcastle City Council, reminds them about the planned residential.

They move on to talk about how the different groups could work together: the Eldon Square project, Streetwise and Utter Legends, to name but a few.

Participating in this meeting, it is clear that the members of this group are behaving in a way that would make Josephine Macalister Brew proud. In her article, Clubs and Club Making, written in 1943, Josephine Macalister Brew talked about the importance of 'a self-governing group', and that in a group of young people, 'the fullest development of each individual and the harmonious growth of all together demands, not only creative leadership, but an increasing sense of responsibility on the part of everyone'.

"I really want to stay involved with this because it's just been loads of fun," says Lizi. "When I talk to friends about it, they say 'are you mad, or something?' People don't understand that we put all this effort in, and that it's voluntary."

"This is my community action," says Emily.

"But a lot of the people we've worked with, they treat us like adults," continues Lizi. "They don't think 'Oh, they're scary young people. They just treat us like we're people."

One of the areas of responsibility for the team is recruitment.

"We're involved with picking staff for it," says Lizi. who is now considering a career in politics. One of her most eye-opening experiences to date was going to a council meeting, or the 'Angry Meeting', as she prefers to remember it. "I nearly burst a blood vessel at that meeting," she says.

Her description of the councillors' behaviour might best be kept off the record, but let's just say that Haribo sweets were handed around, councillors got up and wandered around, and some people ignored the Mayor's request for everyone to sit down and listen to each other.

It is not clear whether the Newcastle myplace team wrote their meeting rules before or after their experience of council meeting etiquette, but here is a taster of how the team at The Link choose to conduct themselves:

myplace Young People's Client Group Ground Rules

1. Please DON'T waffle
2. Try not to talk over the top of each other
3. Don't interrupt each other
4. No throwing things
5. Listen to each other!
6. No naptime

It's impressive. Many so-called grown up, corporate organisations could learn from these rules, particularly the one about napping.

Meanwhile, the discussion moves back to wheels.

"I think the bus is a really good idea," says Lizi. "And I really hope that myplace will change things."

"We've never had anything like this before in Newcastle," says Don Irving. "This is all going to be within five minutes of the new library, five minutes of Eldon Square and the universities, we'll be almost creating a youth village right in the heart of our city."

"We have youth groups in the wards and we have detached workers," he continues. "Hopefully the bus will break down some of those barriers. This bit of myplace will be much more informal and universal." He smiles as he says, "This will be myplace on wheels."

The Link, myplace Newcastle-upon-Tyne in a tag

Location: Vine Lane, Newcastle city centre - and a bus that will go everywhere.

Project value: £5million

Doors open: Late 2011/early 2012

Theme: A real-life Byker Grove - somewhere easy to find, safe and exciting

Activities:
Music
Dance
Yoga
Fitness training
Drama
Parties
Film screenings

Facilities:
Cafe
Recording studio
J decks
Performance space
Careers and health advice
Opportunities for mentoring

Links:
Streetwise, Connexions Newcastle, Barnado's, Newcastle YMCA, Newcastle City Council Youth Services, Northumbria University and Newcastle University

Contact:
Sara Morgan-Evans
Email: sara.morgan-evans@newcastle.gov.uk

Newcastle myplace Inspirational (149.97 kB 2010-07-22 15:14:07)